Koala not out of the woods just yet

By Rosslyn Beeby

Yesterday's announcement by Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke on the conservation status of koalas has been bitter-sweet news for koala ecologists and community conservation groups.

After more than a decade of lobbying for better protection of koalas and their habitat, this alliance between scientists and green volunteers has finally won a national listing for koalas under federal threatened species legislation. It has been a prolonged battle, and the process and final decision continue to raise questions about the value Australia places on its biodiversity and the scientists who are poorly paid - and poorly recognised - for the work they do to inform better management and protection of our wildlife and its habitat.

It also raises questions about the physical, emotional and financial burdens we continue to place on volunteers - many of whom are retired, and have limited finances - to do the hard yakka of species conservation. And it also raises questions about the necessity for tax concessions, or government grants for wildlife carers - the people who are often at the (literally, given the sharpness of koala claws) pointy end of caring for injured and diseased koalas. They pay to train as skilled and certified carers. They also pay for the special formulas needed to feed injured wildlife and for bedding, cleaning materials, bandages, buckets and carry cages. If they're lucky, they know a vet who charges discount rates for wildlife rehabilitation. If not, they pay the vet bills, too.

These are the people former Australian Greens leader Senator Bob Brown praised as having ''worked their guts out over decades'' to collect vital data on koala diseases, genetic diversity and multiple survival threats, including habitat loss, climate change, dog attacks and roadkill.

Burke has announced koala populations in Queensland, NSW and the ACT will be listed as vulnerable under national environment protection law. However, koala populations in South Australia and Victoria are excluded. According to the minister, these populations are '' eating themselves out of suitable foraging habitat and their numbers need to be managed''.

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That's the bitter news for community volunteer groups like Southern Ash Wildlife Shelter who treated injured koalas in the aftermath of Victoria's devastating 2009 Black Saturday bushfires. Colleen Wood, who runs Southern Ash, was the wildlife carer who looked after Sam - the female koala that rocketed to fame around the world when a video of her lapping water from a bottle held by a volunteer firefighter was posted on You Tube. In an angry post on Facebook yesterday, Wood said the decision to exclude Victoria's koalas from the the federal listing was not based on valid data.

''We are admitting more and more koalas with unusual issues, such as renal failure, anaemia - with the majority of these animals needing much intervention and having to be euth'd,'' she wrote. The onus of koala care was being placed on volunteers but with little regard for their expertise, she argued.

Last year, a Senate inquiry into the conservation status of koalas received more than 80 submissions, chiefly from scientists, local conservation groups, regional councils, wildlife shelters and ordinary Australians concerned about the effects of urban sprawl, logging and mining on koalas. But Australia's mainstream conservation groups were conspicuously absent. Only two, the Humane Society International and Friends of the Earth, made submissions. Yesterday, Friends of the Earth raised concerns about Burke's failure to include Gippsland's Strzelecki Ranges koala in the federal listing. A spokesman said ''almost the entire habitat of the Strzelecki koala'' was owned by a company that harvests logs for pulpwood. He estimates 10,000 hectares of koala feed trees have been cleared in the past 15 years .

One of Australia's top koala scientists, University of Central Queensland ecologist Professor Alistair Melzer, welcomed the listing as ''a big step forward'' but warned it is also a legal acknowledgement that the koala is in trouble. The argument over the koala's conservation status is not over yet, he says. The boom-bust cycle of koala populations in Victoria and SA are indications these animals are in ''just as much trouble'' as those in Queensland, NSW and the ACT. ''It's a different part of the puzzle, and shows we still have a long way to go in understanding koala conservation,'' he says.